1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a protocol converter, and particularly to the protocol converter that converts a Modbus protocol and an ECHONET Lite protocol with each other to enable communication between a device performing communication based on a Modbus protocol and a device performing communication based on an ECHONET Lite protocol.
2. Background of the Disclosure
Exemplary embodiments disclosed in the present invention are based on an ECHONET Lite protocol that is attracting much attention as a smart home communication protocol recently.
As an environmental problem, an energy problem, and/or the like come to the fore, the demand for a green energy system is increasing explosively. The reason that provision of the green energy system is slow is because protocols of devices differ. In order to solve such a problem, an ECHONET Lite protocol is being actively developed and distributed all over the world.
However, it is difficult to apply the ECHONET Lite protocol to devices which have been developed and are being used at present. Particularly, since industrial products mainly use a Modbus protocol based on RS 485, it is more difficult for the industrial products to communicate with and be compatible with devices using the ECHONET Lite protocol.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a related art system including devices which are connected to each other over a communication network.
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 designates industrial devices or electric power generation devices such as a photovoltaic device, an energy storage device, an electricity meter, an electric car charger, and the like which are not based on ECHONET Lite, reference numeral 2 designates a new industrial devices or electric power generation devices based on ECHONET Lite, reference numeral 2-1 designates an ECHONET Lite communication stack enabling ECHONET Lite communication, reference numeral 3 designates an ECHONET Lite network that performs communication based on an ECHONET Lite protocol, reference numeral 4 designates a controller that controls an ECHONET Lite device, and reference numeral 5 refers to a Modbus network that performs communication based on a Modbus protocol.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, since a communication protocol does not match between conventional devices based on a Modbus protocol and new devices based on the ECHONET Lite protocol, the conventional devices are incompatible with the new devices. Due to a problem of compatibility, it is difficult to realize connection and integration control between the conventional devices and the new devices.
In order to solve such a problem, the ECHONET consortium defines a ready device and an adaptor device as standard devices and is trying to distribute the ready device and the adaptor device. However, such a standard also has a problem of changing a protocol in order for conventional equipment to match the ready device.
Generally, a home energy management system (abbreviated as “HEMS” hereinafter) is a system that displays the amount of electric power consumed by devices (or home appliances) at home, or controls driving in a remote place.
Here, examples of a communication scheme (protocol) applied to the HEMS include ECHONET, ECHONET Lite, etc.
In a service based on ECHONET Lite, whenever a user of a terminal issues a request, information about all characteristics (or properties) of one or more devices is requested through a controller, and in response to the request, information about characteristic transmitted from each of the one or more devices is output through the terminal. For this reason, a communication load (traffic) between the terminal and the one or more devices increases, and a response time increases.
PATENT REFERENCE: Korean Patent No. 10-0628493